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Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison launched in BrainPOP Science/Engineering & Technology April 30, 2002. Summary Appearances *Tim *Moby *Steam Guy (we don't actually know his name) Transcript *Thomas Edison/Transcript Quiz *Thomas Edison/Quiz FYI Trivia * As a boy, Thomas Edison’s nickname wasn’t “Tom”—it was “Al,” after his middle name, Alva. * Edison had hearing problem that plagued him throughout his life. In fact, by the time he died, he was almost deaf. * Thomas Edison received his first job in a telegraph office in a strange way. Around 1862, Edison saw a young boy playing on some railroad tracks, and he saved the kid from an oncoming boxcar. The boy’s father turned out to be a local station agent, who thanked Edison by hiring him and training him as a telegraph operator. * The U.S. government asked Edison to help design and produce weapons during World War I. But Edison, a strong believer in nonviolence, agreed to work only on defensive weapons systems. * Thomas Edison held 1,093 U.S. patents, which is still a record. His first patent was for an electronic vote-tallying system, which he tried to sell, unsuccessfully, to the Massachusetts state legislature. * Edison used Morse code to propose marriage to his second wife. He also nicknamed two of his children “Dot” and “Dash” after the short and long pulses used to transmit Morse code. * Thomas Edison moved from Menlo Park to West Orange, New Jersey in 1886. His West Orange home and lab are now a National Historic Site maintained by the U.S. Park Service. * Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory no longer exists where it originally did. It was removed to Dearborn, Michigan, where it still stands. The original location, in what is now Edison, NJ, is marked by a tower (pictured), and there is a small museum commemorating the location nearby. Quotables Here are a few samples of the wit and wisdom of Thomas Edison! “Genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.” “Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off.” “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” “I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.” “Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.” “Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent.” “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” “There is no substitute for hard work.” Did You Know Thomas Edison began developing hearing problems when he was just a boy, and his hearing deteriorated as he aged. By adulthood, Edison was completely deaf in his left ear, and had lost 80 percent of the hearing in his right ear. Edison’s hearing was so poor that he would sometimes bite into wooden phonograph cabinets to listen what was playing; the sound vibrations would travel through his teeth! No one knows exactly what caused Edison’s hearing loss. It may have been brought on by a childhood bout of scarlet fever. Edison himself claimed it was caused by a conductor who helped him board a moving train by pulling him up by his ears. There’s also a popular myth about Edison accidentally setting fire to a train by experimenting with chemicals. According to this story, the train conductor was so furious that he boxed Edison’s ears and damaged his hearing, but this is almost certainly untrue. Edison’s hearing loss may have contributed to his refusal to complete his formal education, since it prevented him from learning in a traditional classroom setting. Instead, he continued to learn by reading as many books as he could. Reading, he said, “beats the babble of ordinary conversation.” He even learned to view his disability as a positive, and claimed that his deafness helped him concentrate on his research and experiments. Edison claimed the only thing he really missed was the sound of singing birds. Etc. Thomas Edison had only 12 weeks of formal schooling, which set him apart from many of the other thinkers of his age. Although he was a voracious reader, he cultivated a reputation as a man who had little use for mathematical and scientific theories. Instead, he insisted that his success was caused by strenuous hard work and a refusal to give up. Amazingly, Edison claimed that when he developed his incandescent bulb, he was completely ignorant of some the basic principles of electricity. In fact, he said that understanding Ohm’s Law, which describes the relationship between current, resistance, and voltage in an electric circuit, would have prevented him from experimenting. Edison often developed his inventions through a grueling process of trial and error. He’d experiment with a concept, have his assistants build a prototype, and then test it out to see if it worked. If it didn’t, he’d examine every part in detail to see what went wrong, and then try again. This process usually took a long time. As Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla (who once worked as Edison’s assistant) noted, “If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search . . . a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of his labor.” Quirky Stuff During the late 19th Century, Thomas Edison became so popular that he inspired a new type of literature, which was later dubbed the Edisonade. Edisonades were basically 19th century science-fiction stories, and they appeared in boys magazines called dime novels. They focused on young American men who created incredible new inventions. Sometimes, the hero would have to use the invention to save his life or the lives of his loved ones; other times, he had to save the United States or the world! One of the first Edisonades was “The Steam Man of the Prairies,” by Edward S. Ellis. It first appeared in 1868—a full decade before Thomas Edison was a household name—and it was probably inspired by the transcontinental railroad. But the story remained so popular that it inspired several sequels and stayed in print until 1904. “The Steam Man” focuses on Johnny Brainerd, a teenage dwarf who invents a steam engine shaped like a 10-foot-tall man. With a boiler in its chest, valves on its back, and a smokestack in its top hat, the contraption can run at a top speed 30 miles per hour (48 kph). So Johnny attaches it to a wagon and sets out for the Great Plains, where he and a friend search for gold and go on adventures. Johnny comes back a rich young man, enabling him to attend a fancy East Coast college. FYI Comic There is none. Category:BrainPOP Episodes Category:Science Category:Famous Scientists Category:Energy Category:Engineering & Tech Category:Science & Industry Category:2002 Episodes Category:Episodes in April Category:April 2002 Episodes